Opera Rara

Elisabetta regina d’Inghilterra (1815) was the first of the nine Rossini Neapolitan operas written for Teatro San Carlo. The works Rossini composed were hailed (and have been ever since) as some of the most remarkable ever to be composed for the lyric stage. Opera Rara has made a new performing edition from the autograph manuscript and, for the first time, Rossini’s opera has been recorded absolutely complete, with the original orchestration. As Queen Elizabeth, Jennifer Larmore takes command of her country and her audience with a portrayal, which is strong, yet avoids the stereotypical concept of Elizabeth associated with the films of Bette Davis. Larmore, with the splendid vocalism, makes Rossini’s florid vocal writing work for the character. The part of her rival Matilde has Majella Cullagh giving another of her limpid-voiced heroines. Antonino Siragusa makes his mark in the demanding tenor part of Norfolk while Bruce Ford as Leicester adds the ninth and last of the Neapolitan operas to his repertoire.

Belisario is, quite simply, one of Donizetti’s finest achievements. Dating from the high watermark of Donizetti’s maturity, with its premiere in 1836 (the year after the debut of Maria Stuarda in Milan and Lucia di Lammermoor in Naples), Belisario proved a triumph on stages throughout the 19th century. Yet, incredibly, it is little known today. The libretto, by Salvadore Cammarano (who collaborated with Donizetti on Lucia di Lammermoor), tells the moving and typically complicated story of the 6th century Byzantine general. Falsely accused by his wife, Antonina, of killing their son, he was blinded and exiled as his punishment. Only the recognition by his daughter, Irene, that her father’s former captive, Alamiro, was her long-lost brother restores Belisario’s reputation; tragically, too late to save his life.

Hailing from Mansfield, Missouri, Michael Sypres originally set out to pursue a career in musicals before singing opera. He comes from a family of musicians who run an opera company in Springfield MO, and after studying in the US, travelled to Europe to complete his studies in Vienna. He has rapidly established a formidable reputation for his sensitive singing and astonishing vocal range, with leading roles a the Royal Opera House Coven Garden, Lyric Theatre Chicago, Opéra de Paris and Aix-en-Provence Festival. In 2017, he appeared as Don José in Carmen in Paris and sang Enée, opposite Joyce DiDonato in Berlioz's Les Troyens in Strasbourg.

Vicente Martín y Soler, nicknamed ‘the Valencian Mozart’, was as famous in his own day as his Austrian contemporary. The ‘very rare thing’ depicted in his biggest success, the opera Una cosa rara, is the combination of beauty and honesty, in the person of a charming peasant girl! The work was arranged for wind ensemble by Johann Nepomuk Wendt, and Mozart quoted from it in Don Giovanni. This programme is completed by premiere recordings of three divertimenti.

The Opera Rara label devotes itself to just what the name says, not only recording rare operas, but also mounting them in well-financed productions. They've excavated works that promise to reshape the operatic repertory some, and so it may be with this work by Ruggero Leoncavallo, which he preferred to the ubiquitous I Pagliacci. It offers a pure verismo story, featuring the titular character, a French music-hall singer who gets involved in a doomed affair with a married Parisian businessman.

During the years from 1815 to 1822 when his career centered on Naples, Rossini composed a sequence of works for the Teatro San Carlo, which at that time boasted an outstanding orchestra and a company of resident singers that was the leading ensemble available anywhere. A string of masterpieces resulted, including Ermione - which is without doubt one of the composer's greatest operas, despite it being perhaps the least immediately successful. Ermione was received with incomprehension at its sole performance in 1819 and was never revived in Rossini's lifetime. Since its first stage revival in Pesaro in 1987, Ermione has been recognized as a lost masterpiece. Set in the aftermath of the Trojan War, the opera's novelties begin with an overture interrupted by a choral lament of Trojan prisoners. Tension and staggering originality are maintained right to the very end.

Donizetti’s fascination with the story of Gabriella di Vergy began in 1826. His first version, written for his own pleasure, was never completed. For over a century that was all that was known to exist. In 1979, Opera Rara discovered in a London library a hitherto unknown complete opera on the same subject. Donizetti had written this for Naples in 1838. The grisly appeal of the story of Gabriella lies in its powerful final scene in which Gabriella’s husband, Fayel, delivers to her a casket containing the still-warm heart of her lover, Raoul. On this world premier recording, Opera Rara also includes three pieces from the 1826 version.